Corking the Bottle

I have an A.A. friend who is a murderer. I'll call him Fred. He isn't afraid to talk about what he did. It's probably good therapy. I'm going to tell an abbreviated version of his story here that's meant to be a disincentive to drive drunk and to drink at all, period. Fred woke up one day in a hospital. He had been in a coma and couldn't remember anything. He was told he had been in a serious car accident, but he could remember nothing about it. Then they told them a person in the other car died. When Fred was discharged from the hospital, he was taken straight to jail, then convicted. He served 11 years in prison. Worse than that, he took a life and permanently changed the lives of the victim's family and friends. He didn't say if the deceased was man or woman, young or old, a parent, a knowledgeable worker someplace.... But it was a snuffed-out life caused by another's drinking. I feel sorry for Fred. He has to carry that guilt with him th...

(Reprinted from my blog post August 6, 2018) We pray the Lord's prayer. We hold hands in a circle and repeat it after most A.A. meetings. We say it every Sunday in church. When I was little, we said it before each school day began. But did you ever notice that there's a catch to it? Everything is asked straightforward: Give us our daily bread, don't lead us into temptation, deliver us from evil. Right in the middle is a scary action item for  us , a do-this-for-me-and-I-will-do-this-for-you deal we make with God. "And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." In the Presbyterian church where I grew up, we replace "trespasses" with "debts." It seems like Presbyterians are worried about money we owe and others owe us. Un-Presbyterians promise to obey God's "No Trespassing!" signs, the same as we allow others into our yards.  "Trespasses" and "debts" don't get to the main...

[First published August 6, 2018] We pray the Lord's prayer. We hold hands in a circle and repeat it after most A.A. meetings. We say it every Sunday in church. When I was little, we said it before each school day began. But did you ever notice that there's a catch to it? Everything is asked straightforward: Give us our daily bread, don't lead us into temptation, deliver us from evil. Right in the middle is a scary action item for  us , a do-this-for-me-and-I-will-do-this-for-you deal we make with God. "And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." In the Presbyterian church where I grew up, we replace "trespasses" with "debts." It seems like Presbyterians are worried about money we owe and others owe us. Un-Presbyterians promise to obey God's "No Trespassing!" signs, the same as we allow others into our yards.  "Trespasses" and "debts" don't get to the main issue here...

We pray the Lord's prayer. We hold hands in a circle and repeat it after most A.A. meetings. We say it every Sunday in church. When I was little, we said it before each school day began. But did you ever notice that there's a catch to it? Everything is asked straightforward: Give us our daily bread, don't lead us into temptation, deliver us from evil. Right in the middle is a scary action item for us , a do-this-for-me-and-I-will-do-this-for-you deal we make with God. "And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." In the Presbyterian church where I grew up, we replace "trespasses" with "debts." It seems like Presbyterians are worried about money we owe and others owe us. Un-Presbyterians promise to obey God's "No Trespassing!" signs, the same as we allow others into our yards.  "Trespasses" and "debts" don't get to the main issue here. Don't we really mean, "F...